Paint this town blue, Month 6

2016 is my year of charity. I’ll donate part of my income for good causes, every month another one. Then I blog about the impact. Here is what I support in June.

This quarter I focus on South America.

Brighten the life of children.

There is a gap. This gap prevents young people from learning things that are present in most western households and access to what we all experienced throughout our time in school. I’m talking about technology that we use nowadays and education, including a second or third language.
This gap exists in many places in different extremes all over the world. The charity I stumbled upon is taking care of children of Oropesa, a villages surrounding the rural area 25km outside of Cusco, Peru, the Picaflor House. They provide a stimulating and dynamic after school programme children in the range of four to 14 years old and attend the project from 2.30 to 5pm Monday to Friday, outside of state school hours.

Education and childcare

Picaflor House aims to provide the children with academic assistance through classes in mathematics, reading comprehension and English as well as homework assistance. But it also includes non-academic activities such as music, crafts and computing.
They also aim to provide free or affordable local childcare for working families. Really cool is that Picaflor introduces and trains the children in new technologies such as computers and iPads.

Picaflor House classroom. Credits: Picaflor House, LATA Foundation

Looking after the whole community

Picaflor also supports the local community through hygiene programmes, taps for teeth washing and stoves for local families – having a far-reaching positive impact on the wider community. Picaflor works directly with the community to identify their needs and help them to become stakeholders in proposed solutions. This holistic and communicative approach has strengthened the community as a whole and greatly improved the educational and vocational opportunities of the children involved.

Great results

Over the past years, Picaflor has grown to serve approximately 45 children at a time. Classes now include an Academic Programme focused on Mathematics and Reading Comprehension; Non Academic Programme including Chess, Sports, Photography, Music, Traditional Dance; Health and Hygiene Programme; English Programme and Homework Support. Most recently Picaflor House began working more closely with the community and installed several cleaner burning stoves in the family’s homes to reduce indoor air pollution.

Who is behind this project?

Jim Elliott, Globalteer’s General Manager, founded Picaflor House in 2010. He did run similar a after school programmes in Cambodia before. After Jim moved to Peru he recognised the need for a similar demand when he saw children wandering the streets after school.
In conversations with community members and by visiting different areas he found that he would have the biggest impact in Oropesa, and decided to start there. First they worked out of the local school and just taught classes before they included other activities and found their own House, the Picaflor House.

Why I chose to support them

Picaflor House addresses some important issues in a society where people are busy working and need to rely on other means to look after their children. This seems like a great way of not only keeping the kids busy and off the streets, but educate them and make sure they are not left behind when it comes to education and technology.

Receipt for mil leaves’ donation to LATA Foundation, the charity behind Picaflor House

Next

Like what the Lata Foundation and Picaflor House are doing? Visit their website to see more about the great work they do.